If you want to know the ins and outs of how to play Texas Hold Em poker, then you must set your sights well on learning the rules of the game, and then learn the hierarchy of the hands (which 5 card combinations beat out the others), and then be able to outsmart your fellow players in the game with you. This type of poker seems easy when you see it played because there are so many cards face up on the table, but in actuality it is quite complicated and does take practice before you are really adept at playing effectively.
Because Texas Hold Em is the most popular form of poker today, every time you surf the TV channels you will inevitably run across a poker tournament and the game they are playing is always Texas Hold Em. Most likely because the favor is there in the viewing audience, but also because it is an easy form of poker to watch—-there are a lot of cards face up on the table during the play, so you can watch the progress of the game and understand the betting process better. If you know how to play Texas Hold Em, you have a better grasp of what is going on when the players are betting because you can see what the hole cards are held by each player and the MC of the tournament usually keeps you abreast of the play.
To start the actual play for this form of poker, the dealer——who is designated by a dealers button that is placed in front of him—–calls for the players to put all enforced bets into the pot. Called antes or blinds, these bets are started by the player sitting immediately to the left of the dealer who puts in the first blind bet called the small blind. The next player to the dealers left is now in line to post the second blind bet and this is called the big blind—-a point here to remember is that in Texas Hold Em games, the small blind is of the big blind bet. Now the actual card dealing begins, and if you know how to play Texas Hold Em, you know that the dealer will deal two cards to each player face down so no one else can see what they are except the player to whom they are dealt, and these are referred to as the “hole” cards. Each player scrutinizes their own hole cards and decides from that holding if he should continue to play, or throw in his cards and fold.
After the first deal of the hole cards, the betting begins with the player sitting to the left of the big blind and he will evaluate his hole cards and either check, call, raise or fold—-at this point, the betting moves around the table with each player deciding if his hole cards are good enough to bet on, and does so accordingly. The next thing that happens is that the dealer will place 3 cards face up on the table that are visible to everyone and from this fact they get their name of community cards, or the “flop”. Now if you know how to play Texas Hold Em, you know that the player to the left of the dealer will start another round of betting based on what he has hidden (his hole cards) and the 3 community cards on the table. After this round of betting, the dealer now deals out one more face up card on the table and this is called the “turn”. Now, each player again evaluates his holdings based on the 4 community cards and his hole cards—-if his chances of beating anyone else at the table look pretty bleak, it’s time to fold.
Now, the game is at the point where the last community or face up card is dealt by the dealer and this card is the “river”. All the players that are left in the game at this point, re-evaluate their hands, and place their bets accordingly. But remember, if you know how to play Texas Hold Em, you know that there may be a player left who has been bluffing his way throughout the game, and he really doesn’t have a good hand at all, he just wants you to think that, so he can jack up the ante and make more money if he can pull off the bluff. This is where the psychology of the game enters in, players psyching each other out, and putting their best “poker faces” on.
The final round of betting has now taken place, and all players that are still playing at this point must show their hands. The player with the best 5 card combo ——that includes the cards on the table that are face up for you to use, and the 2 hole cards that you have——the best combo from all these cards will win the pot. If it turns out that there are 2 players who have identical hands in value, then they must split the pot. Sometimes it happens that the hole cards that each player has, are not worth anything as far as making up a winning 5 card combo, and the face up (community cards) cards on the table are the best combination overall for everyone. In that case, the pot is split by all the players that are in the game at this point. The dealer button now is moved clockwise to the next player, and he now is the designated dealer for the next hand.
Learning how to play Texas Hold Em poker can be a rewarding experience and one that is exciting and a lot of fun as well. As with any game worth its salt, it has all kinds of tricks and turns and quirky little plays that you must be aware of every time you play, but when you start getting involved with it and play on a regular basis, you will soon see why Texas Hold Em is the world’s most popular form of poker.